Electronic Eyes Watch For Crime 24-7 In Gardena

GARDENA (CBSLA.com) — Police in Gardena now have a vast network of cameras helping them keep an eye out for crime.

About 50 park and street surveillance cameras are now keeping an unblinking eye out for crime. A total of 130 surveillance cameras are now situated throughout the 5.9-square-mile city, with 20 more in the works, according to the Torrance Daily Breeze.

All the images collected by the cameras are fed into a camera monitoring room at the Gardena Police Station, where officers watch select buildings, intersections and parks around the clock.

The surveillance seems to be working so far – officers say there’s been a reduction in park vandalism and the cameras even solved a shooting case.

“The camera placement next to the skate parks really had a deterring effect on kids vandalizing and having problems at skate parks,” Gardena Police Chief Ed Medrano said. “That kind of concept is moving out into the community, where we’re going to have cameras throughout our major thoroughfares being watched and to be monitored so that …our employees see suspicious activity, they can call proactively our officers in to check it out.”

The department began installing cameras last year in jail cells and on municipal buildings and eventually expanded to cover the rest of the city.

To install the cameras, Medrano sought out funding in 2007, receiving $1.1 million from the city of Gardena and about $500,000 more from private grants, the Breeze reported.